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The meaning of Arrian, Anabasis 7.9.5
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 February 2012
Extract
This passage forms the climax of the first part of Alexander's speech at Opis in which he described the achievements of Philip. In the next sentence Alexander began to compare ‘these achievements of my father’ with his own services.
The first part is carefully structured. It begins with Philip's achievements in Upper Macedonia, which over many years had suffered from raids by its neighbours. It then proceeds to Thrace, Thessaly, Phocis, Athens-and- Thebes, and the Peloponnese. This sequence is not temporal, but geographical. Then comes the climax, the command against Persia which was entrusted to Philip.
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References
1 There is no need to emend στρατιά to στρατεία, as has been suggested. See LSJ s.v. στρατεία 5 and s.v. στρατιά II = στρατεία. Both forms of the word occur in Arrian's text, presumably because during the transmission of the text the scribes varied in their spelling.
2 So also at Arr. 3.8.2 κατὰ τὴν στρατιάν ταύτην. For the concept of δόξα we may compare Arr. 7.20.1 κατὰ δόξαν τῆς ὲς Ίνδούς στρατιᾶς
3 As he said in volume 1, xvi, ‘Robson's translation was notoriously marred by frequent inaccuracies. None the less, I have found it a necessary economy of time to revise it rather than replace it’.
4 The two stages are clear in Arr. 3.24.5 πρὸ τῆς είρήνης τε καὶ τῆς ξυμμαχίας τῆς πρὸς Μακεδόνας, Diod. 17.4.9 and Just. 9.5.2 and 9.5.5.
5 ‘The full powers’ mean that Alexander did not have any colleague of equal authority, and that he gave orders at his discretion, without having to consult the Common Council. I have discussed the meaning of the term in my Studies in Greek History (Oxford 1973) 366 and 369.Google Scholar
6 LSJ s.v. Έλλάς lists six geographical meanings.
7 The Hellenes of the Common Peace were in alliance with Macedonia. See my account of their relationship in Hammond, N.G.L. and Walbank, F.W., A History of Macedonia iii (Oxford 1988) 572–9Google Scholar.
8 This significant passage is usually overlooked by those who maintain that the Macedones were not regarded as Greeks.
9 Alexander mentioned the two parts of Hellas, because the Persian invasion of Macedonia preceded that of Attica by almost twenty years.
10 Bosworth, A.B., From Arrian to Alexander (Oxford 1988) 111Google Scholar.
11 For example, ‘the Peloponnesians’ were sent to the Troad and ‘the Argives’ to Sardis in 334 (Arr. 1.17.8).
12 In his Loeb edition i. lv with n.33.
13 In Hdt. 1.101 there are six γένεα of τὸ Μηδικὸν ἕθνος.
14 That the Macedonians of Pieria spoke Greek in the fifth century has been proved beyond doubt by the discovery of epitaphs with Greek names at Vergina. See Andronicos, M., Vergina: the Royal Tombs (Athens 1984) 83–84Google Scholar.
15 Brunt's translation ‘the commonwealth of the Macedonians’ is an improvement on that of Robson ‘all Macedonia’. There is, however, no need for Brunt's suggestion (ii 230 n.5) that Xenophon's ‘commonwealth of the Persians’ (Cyrop. 1.5.8) could have suggested the phrase. For it was the indigenous term in Macedonia.
16 See my article, ‘The koina of Epirus and Macedonia’, Illinois Classical Studies 16 (1991) 183–92Google Scholar, to which the ‘Balaieitai’ should be added from Illyrie Méridionale et l'Épire dans l'antiquité ii (Paris 1993, ed. Cabanes, P.) 205Google Scholar. An act of the Molossian State as τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Μολοσσῶν was recorded in an inscription c. 370-368 BC, for which see my account in Epirus (Oxford 1967) 528–31.Google Scholar
17 See further in my book The Macedonian State (Oxford 1989) 58Google Scholar ‘the government of the Macedonian state was vested in two parts: the king of the day … and the Macedones’. So also Hatzopoulos 491 ‘the Macedonians were, as much as the King, a constituent part of the Macedonian state’. This is different from the view of Brunt (1. xxxix-xl) ‘in principle the king was the state’, and from his conclusion that ‘Arrian 7.9.5 is anachronistic’.